@almarg Widespread usage of incorrect terminology doesn’t make it correct. Just
as widespread misuse of the English language doesn’t make it correct.
For example, many people would say that they could care less about this
topic, even though that is the opposite of what they mean :-)
IMO you have to be pragmatic about these things. The industry isn't going to shy away from 'RMS power' anytime soon. Its a 'charged term' that has a life of its own.
Other examples of charged terms:
'output impedance' is not the measure of the actual impedance of the output circuit, its the measure of the servo (feedback) gain of that circuit. Otherwise we would have a problem with Kirchoff's Law. Put another way, if adding loop negative feedback really lowered the output impedance of an amplifier, the result would be that the amp could make more power into lower impedances. But the fact is that the only way to do that is to add more output devices, more heatsinks (or bigger output transformers) and so on. But adding loop feedback definitely lowers output impedance! That is because 'output impedance' is a charged term.
'Conservative' (political term) refers to a person that will drive a Prius rather than a Ford Excursion, will work to protect the forest rather than log it, will work to reduce global warming etc, but most people think it means the opposite.
(the latter is an example of how messed up our politics are that liberals are conservative and conservatives are liberal...)
We deal with charged terms that mean other than what we are saying all the time. Its part of what makes the human experience so fun :)
